The Questions are More Important Than the Answers

Tag Archives: financial exclusion

Central banks

Since I started learning about bitcoin as an alternative to traditional paper money, I have often wondered why we have come to accept banking as it is constituted today. There are lots of problems with the current banking system but we are so conditioned to it that we don’t consider it’s problems to be problems.

We accept all the problems with banking to be normal. Is it normal that a signed cheque should take days to clear? Why is it expensive to send money from the west to developing countries? Why do banks close at a certain time? Why is access to my own money controlled by institutions like banks and governments?

Central banks decide how much money to print and put into circulation. They are causing financial exclusion by their actions. Is poverty a conscious decision made by banks and those who control them?

There are many questions that need answers but most people have never thought to ask. We have never realised there are problems until bitcoin started solving them.

Fiat currency

Fiat currency is backed by the trust we place in the government issuing it. When we begin to lose trust in the issuing authority, then the currency crumbles like a deck of cards.

Fiat currencies have crumbled in many countries including Zimbabwe. The question is why? Why do we lose trust in government and central banks? Their decisions have caused financial exclusion. There are billions of people across the who are either unbanked or underbanked. The golabal financial system has failed to appreciate the value that these people bring to the table.

Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is a financial disruptor. It is a peer to peer payment system without a central controlling authority. Anyone can participate including the unbanked and underbanked. Its value is derived from its network of users

Bitcoin solves all the problems that we are facing with banks and institutions.

What is bitcoin and what is the blockchain? Bitcoin is a crypto currency. A crypto currency is a digital currency with encryption. Encryption ensures the security of the bitcoin.

The blockchain is the protocol that solves the problem of trust. Every human interaction is compromised by trust. We have built institutions that guarantee trust such as banks and governments. But these institutions have been behaving badly and can no longer be trusted.

The blockchain is here to guarantee trust. It promises to get rid of the institutions that we have built because these institutions can be compromised and can no longer be trusted.

The blockchain has applications in every area of human interaction that requires trust. It keeps a public ledger of every transaction between human beings.

The blockchain is an accounting system which cannot be compromised without the simultaneous consensus of all the participants in the blockchain. It’s the biggest disruption to the status quo after the internet.

My advice is for everyone to try to understand how it works and what applications are being used in your area of expertise. The blockchain is building a new economy which resurrects dead capital and incorporates people who have been financially excluded from economic activities.

Inequality of capital and of income is the biggest driver of poverty and it is a deliberate machination. The blockchain will put a stop to that.